HG 1/144 GN-001 Gundam Exia Review

I bought this figure while I was over in Japan Oct/November of last year and now he’s all put together I thought i’d take a few pics and give my two cents on this very affordable (880 Yen/£4) figure.

Firstly, Exia is the flagship Gundam of the latest series, Gundam 00, and is the close combat model of the 4 Gundams we have seen so far. Ok stage set, on with the review.

This model stands around 12cm tall and is very nicely detailed and articulated for a model of its size, and certainly looks the part! Painting isn’t really required as most of the pieces are modelled in solid blocks of colour and a sticker sheet is included to further the detailing. This model hasnt had anything special done to it yet but I do plan to take it apart, topcoat, paint and panel line the model to really finish it off. For this i’m using Danny Choos awesome tutorial available here.

I do have a few minor complaints with this model though, and these are the following:

You are only supplied with a single beam-saber blade – even though Exia is armed with 4! You do however get 4 Hilts which connect into Exia at various points. Additionally The beam saber blade isn’t painted either which is a bit of a drag as I now have to invest in the manly Gundam Pink paint! Wish i’d bought a load of paints and bits from Tokyu Hands while I was still in Japan! Oh well!

The 2 blue Parts of the chest unit come loose all the time! they are connected to the top of the arms which should hold them snugly in position but when you look at the pieces it looks like they’ve been cut way too big.

Exias shield is a bit crappy, the white front panelling is just a huge sticker which is mighty hard to get in place and doesn’t really stick down well at the best of times, I can see they did this to reduce pieces and it could easily be fixed with a bit of painting and i’ll probably tackle it the same time i do all the panelling.

The Hands supplied with this model are fixed, you do get choices of open or closed for both left and right hand though and they have released some extra hands with increased mobility but bloody hell are they expensive http://www.hlj.com/product/BCL2770 – more than the figure!!!!

Last but not least, Exias awesome GN Blades don’t seem to attach all that well. They connect to two cylinders which clip into the hips (just like in the show) but they don’t really work very well when you put Exia into more dynamic poses as they catch the back and fall off. And yeah, I know I could just take them off when i’m doing that but it looks so much cooler having every weapon available attached to it 🙂

Despite my rantings to the contrary don’t get me wrong, I do think this model is pure awesome, so awesome I couldn’t wait to order Paint and Gundam Markers I just had to put it together! Can’t wait to invest in Dynames, Kyrios and Virtue(& Nadleeh ) and complete the set!